He would get late night calls for my son who was a student at a local college.

They were from co-eds, many many calls from many many co-eds.

He listened patiently and then with the soft, soothing voice you would expect from the director of a nursing home system, he would say that

they were looking for the residence of the Rev. Dr. Same Name.

I would get calls for Mr. Same Name from anxious adult children of elderly parents wondering if there was room, anywhere, immediately, as in NOW, for dad.

“We can’t take it anymore. He’s driving us NUTS. Pull-ease,” they pleaded.

I would muster the most soothing, nursing home director’s voice I could, maybe just shy of a funeral director’s and say,

“Of course we will help you with your dearly beloved dad.

Might I suggest one more thing? We never know when that day or that inevitable day for all of us will come (remorseful sobbing on the other end of the line),

but may I suggest, only if you do not already have benefit of clergy, the name of a really wonderful minister who happens to have the same name as mine as someone who could and would do a really meaningful funeral for your dear dad,

at a very reasonable price, I might add?”

“Do not pass go, Rev. Dr. Same Name. Do not collect those two hundred dollars. Go directly to purgatory, when your inevitable day comes.” The voice had a deep, soothing tone not unlike the director of a respected nursing home system or perhaps a funeral director.

It was a bit more sonorous and stentorian and the Rev. Dr. Same Name wasn’t sure just where it was coming from.

Veterinarians Go Directly to Heaven; Ministers Do Not Pass Go; Do Not Collect Two Hundred Dollars; Go Directly to Purgatory And Be Happy About It

My other friend with the same name as my late veterinary friend who died like what seems was just a few days ago and was,

Came in the coffee shop today. I said he looked good since I read his obituary.

He said someone had handed him his obituary between the early service and the regular service on Sunday.

Ushers who were assigned to both services, remarked on how much better the sermon was at the early service.

They are both doctors. One was a DVM and the other is a ministerial Ed.D.

They got each other’s mail and phone calls. The vet got church school curricula and the

minister got late night calls about sick gerbils.

The minister, a bit put off by the timing of the calls, never identified himself as the Ed.D and not the DVM and told the people he would do a laying of hands on the phone for healing of the gerbils.

I think the vet might have lost some business without knowing why.

The vet read the Church school material and became more religious.

The minister was divinely sentenced to a few more millennia in purgatory when he goes for bad religious humor and insensitivity to the feelings of gerbil owners and possibly harming the business of a sole proprietor.

My ex-mafia member, ex-brother-in-law, a lapsed, un-lapsed (repeat that several times) Roman Catholic tells me he prays a thousand people out of purgatory every day. It’s his penance for things best left unnamed.

If my minister friend who has the same name as my friend the vet, dies before I do, and if I’m not in an Alzheimer’s wing of some nursing home

and if my ex-brother-in-law is still alive and not in purgatory or maybe even hell himself for things best left unnamed,

I’m going to call him and give him the name of my friend who has the same name as my friend, the late great vet.

I’ll be sure to tell him to pray for the minister. I’m sure the vet’s in heaven.

In the car, out the drive, down the road to the trails. Howling blares from the back seat. They turn the corner at Riley and he knows for sure: “Bark, Bark, Bark, please, please, please, yes, yes, yes!”

Out of the car. Runners to your mark. Set your stopwatches. Go.

They start out slowly and then settle into a really slow pace. Two minutes in and Boomer hears nature’s call. He makes a run for the woods. He’s so considerate. No poop on the trail for the Boomer.

They stop the watches. For elite athletes, every step counts.

He’s back; they go. Chris in front, Boomer along-side and Bob bringing up the rear.

In his prime, Bob still ran in the back of the pack. It was always a great view. Still is.

Boomer starts to cough, wheeze and generally sound asthmatic.

He has a prolapsed bone in his throat. Not too bad for a ninety-five year old.

The sixty-six year old starts to cough, wheeze and generally sound asthmatic, because he is.

This is where the jogging to distant places begins.

It’s West Michigan, but Ferde Grofe appears and jogs along.

They are now in the Grand Canyon, making their way down the narrow trail: Hee Haw, Hee Haw, Hee Haw.

It’s the Donkey Serenade after daybreak. It sounds so suite except to Chris or anyone else in hearing range.

Bob grabs his inhaler and breathes deeply and exhales.

“Want some, Boom?” Not so funny, Bob.

They are transported back to West Michigan. Time’s up. Stop the watches. Thirty minutes.

“Yes, We won!”

Boomer lusts over the evaporating man-made pond.

“Okay, Boom. You can jump in that big, beautiful lake.”

It is still morning, awhile since sunrise, but Bob begins to hum “Canadian Sunset.”

“Everyone back in the car.”

“Okay. But wasn’t that a great trip? I can’t wait till tomorrow. Can it be today again? I only know now.”

We saw him in the flesh on Wednesday. We saw him in the paper on Monday.

In between, he died.

She opened the morning paper and was flipping pages and there he was,

And I mean was. Not to be trite, but what a shock!

Our family veterinarian died in his sleep, peacefully the obit stated.

I guess peaceful is good, but he was only sixty-seven.

We had just bantered back and forth about the local power structure. He and I were bosom buddies when it came to politics, putting us in a distinct minority.

He had the credentials, though; he was Dutch royalty and he could have played the game.

One of his ancestors came over on da first boat of settlers with his hona da future and first mayor and I don’t mean the Mayflower, though the ships sailed from the same country at different times.

He was big and bawdy and obscene and he tried to scandalize and I really liked him.

Boomer didn’t. He frightened Boomer. Every time we took Boomer to see him, Boomer would hide behind us and pull us toward the exit, which had just been the entrance.

He wanted out and away from the big guy in the white coat.

I can’t blame him. My blood pressure would go up, too, if all the vet meant to me was thermometers up my butt, shots in my rear, scent gland squeezed, nails cut into the quick. Ouch!

What do I know? I only get a physician’s digit up my rectum once a year and my blood pressure goes up just thinking about it.

I read part of the obit to Boomer, but my voice had to have had a tone of anxiety. I was upset. Boomer didn’t understand the obit, but he thought I was mad at him. He lowered his ears and turned his eyes away.

It is all about tone with the dog. Kids, too. They used to say, “Dad, you have THE tone again.” You don’t ever have to hit a dog; you should never hit a kid. Just use THE tone.

Except this time.

I didn’t mean to have the tone.

“Oh, Boom, I’m not mad. I’m just sad. One of the really good guys died and Lord knows there is a shortage around here.”

Boomer looked at me and wagged his tail. See, it’s all about the tone.

John stopped by the pastor’s study to welcome Phil to the neighborhood.

“Got time for a cup of coffee in town?”

There would be many coffees and lunches over the next eighteen months. Then Phil would be done with the interim.

John was ebullient, sort of hyper, always excited about something going on at his inner city congregation. And his boys, always something about the boys: “Phil, you can’t believe Jim’s slider. It breaks this far.” He holds his hands three feet apart.

“A slider drops. A curve breaks.” John’s hands went from horizontal to perpendicular.

“Whatever.”

Phil thought of the Dutchism, “How big is baby? Sooo big.”

Hands three feet apart, horizontal or perpendicular; it was still a big baby.

In particular, he loved his Saturday morning men’s breakfast/bible study. That one puzzled Phil. A progressive fellow in all things theological, John loved delivering the message through traditional forms. Ah, the saving grace of the familiar.

University of Michigan Law grad, leader of one hundred lawyers at a well known firm, John searched for more than torts.

Following bliss, he said, he started seminary, a local denominational seminary, because it was close.

Quitting work, he enrolled full-time and became a Lutheran pastor.

His parents and sister wondered if he would ever grow up. Then his wife wondered the same thing not to mention the drop in salary. The three boys loved being with their dad; he was kind of a kid and was always there for them.

John often wondered what he would be if and when he grew up.

Two years after the initial coffee, John and Phil had breakfast. He asked Phil if he was familiar with Georges Gurdjieff and P. D. Ouspensky. Phil asked if they were linebackers for the Bears.

Stiffening his back and holding his big, black wavy mop high, he summoned his best Russian accent: “You vould never understand de Rrrrussian meestics.”

“Oh, I’ve read Leo Stoletoy. He robbed me of my innocence.”

“Stop.”

John then spoke of “polar points” and finding his polar point right there in the church on the staff of all things. Imagine that!

“Now you are crediting the Russian mystics for it,” Phil said, “And it still sounds like adultery.”

John knew he wouldn’t understand. Ouspensky was just too deep for Phil not to mention Gurdjieff.

Russian mystics or not, John was out of ministry.

A year later, Phil heard that on a particularly cold March morning, fully clothed, John walked into Lake Michigan and didn’t walk out. Phil wondered if John sang, “He Waded in the Water” as he walked in.

His wife was divorcing him; his three sons just shook their heads and cried, ever so hard.

Phil sat in his study. “Damn you, John. Damn your soul to hell.”

He thought of how much he loved John and then he thought of the three boys:

An outstanding pitcher in high school who chose scholarship over the diamond; a brilliant middle child who as a college sophomore tried to trump his dad on philosophy; the youngest who wanted to follow his dad into the peace corps.

He thought of a seventeen-year-old boy who sat on a squeaky, folding, wood chair in a God forsaken pastel parlor listening to the sonorous sounds which belied the pastor who had told his dad to pray more when his dad was prayed out and before his dad

walked into the water never to return, either.

He thought of the teacher who took the then eighteen-year-old under his academic wing and introduced him to the tragedies of Shakespeare and the comedies. Thank God for Falstaff.

He looked around the study at the mementos, the certificates with lots of people behind them. He closed his eyes and sighed.

The note came, terse, formal, cold: “Remove me from your…” and then there was some word indicating a professional e-mail service. The word was capitalized. I didn’t know it; I don’t remember it. I’m not a professional e-mail service.

I remember the formality, the distance, the anonymity of it. But it was my anonymity. My name was gone.

It was like getting an advertisement via snail mail addressed “To Occupant.”

I’ve known him for years through church, youth groups, camp, high school, junior college and as a room-mate for one year when we both left home for the first time as transfers.

He took my picture hitting a double for the jc baseball team. He sent it to the local paper. I was famous for a day. I think it was my only hit.

I was his best man at his wedding; he mine a couple of years later.

But that was that and then.

I went south; he never left.

We reconnected seventeen years later. I had more in common with his wife.

He stayed, bought the whole rah, rah, sis, boom, bah. He makes a great cheerleader for the status quo.

I had a problem with his boss kissing up to big donors. It was my school he was prostituting. I let the boss know three times with copies to my best man.

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Dr. Robert E. Dahl

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The Ten P.M. Walk

My daughter and I have published the Ten P.M. Walk, a collection of my posts and Rachel's formatting.

The Nine A.M. Jog

This is a photo of pages inside of the Nine A.M. Jog, a book we just published showing Rachel's original abstract watercolor interpreting one of my poems. The Ten P.M. Walk and The Nine A.M. Jog can be purchased from Amazon Books and Barnes and Noble Books.